Jacque Amadi tells how she tried her hand at everything to find her niche

As so many of us move toward entrepreneurship, I wanted to feature someone who faced adversity while building a business empire. With that, I am pleased to have Jacque Amadi of Jacque OF ALL TRADES with us. Jacque is a young entrepreneur who at 21 started an online boutique, Shop Lioness, to pay for college. Since then, she has had much success all because she took a chance on herself.

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Nic Abraham:

Tell us about yourself.

Jacque Amadi:

Well, I blog at JacqueAmadi.com. My blog is called Jaqcue of All Trades because I literally tried my hand at everything. Anything that I think could benefit me and benefit others, I go for a hundred percent. Right now I am full time as a social media manager for my own company, Amadi Digital Boutique. Then, I also have another online shop, Shop Lioness, and now I sell cutesy head wear at AdornedbyChi.com.

Nic Abraham:

Wow.

Jacque Amadi:

Yeah. This week I’m on my way to South Korea. I will be documenting my travels through my blog, Black in Korea, which is basically like an online publication for, I was going to say African Americans, but honestly all black people who travel or live in, or who just love Korean culture. It’s kind of a way to bridge the gap between Korea and black people who are interested in going there.

Nic Abraham:

Oh okay. What is taking you to South Korea?

Jacque Amadi:

Well, I actually was going to go to South Korea, I hate to call it as a last resort, but when I could not find a job after graduating, I was like it’s time to go teach English in Korea. I got my passport. I got all the documents ready and I was going to go, but then I got a full time job and I stayed in Dallas. I was looking at my passport and the only reason I have one is because I wanted to go to South Korea, so I thought now that I work from home and I have the flexibility to travel and do things that I’ve been wanting to do, I decided why not finally go to South Korea. Since I was going by myself, nobody wanted to go with me, I decided to launch a blog and find other black people who are interested in travelling there or living in South Korea. That blog has kind of exploded. While I’m there I’ll be interviewing really cool people and hopefully doing a lot of cool stuff.

Nic Abraham:

That’s awesome. Maybe about four or five years ago one of my close friends went to South Korea to teach. She started there. Then she went to Abu Dhabi and she got married and had two kids.

Jacque Amadi:

Oh wow.

Nic Abraham:

Yeah and now she lives in Oman mean and loves it.

Jacque Amadi:

That’s awesome.

Nic Abraham:

Yeah, for sure.

Jacque Amadi:

That gives me hope.

Nic Abraham:

I mean, seriously. She went over there and she was a teacher from Atlanta and she loved it. So, it definitely seems like there’s possibility and opportunity there.

Jacque Amadi:

I really, really hope so. I know a lot of people go there to teach and I’m hoping that I can kind of find opportunity outside of that too.

Nic Abraham:

Yeah, for sure.

Jacque Amadi:

I really wanted to teach there, but now that I have other stuff going on, now I really want my website and my blog to kind of be like a gateway to doing business in Korea, hopefully.

Nic Abraham:

Awesome. That’s so awesome. Well, walk us through the moment you decided to start Shop Lioness.

Jacque Amadi:

Okay, well I was broke. That’s usually the start of every story for me. I was broke and I was like, dang, I need to go get a job. I was spending a lot of time thrifting. I was spending a lot of time on my personal blog at the time, so I thought, okay, let me find a way to monetize something that I’m already using, spending a lot of time on. That’s when I started, I would thrift extra things. Like, things that wouldn’t necessarily fit me. Then, I would just model them and sell them online. Also, with Shop Lioness I kind of wanted to represent, in addition to me just being broke and trying to just earn money for myself, I also wanted to represent black women in a different way then we were represented online, especially through eCommerce. I feel like if there was a shop that had black models and black women it was usually kind of quote urban, you know what I mean?

Nic Abraham:

Yeah.

Jacque Amadi:

I kind of wanted to showcase quirkier clothes on a black body and also pay for my college.

Nic Abraham:

That’s awesome. What has been your greatest defining moment so far?

Jacque Amadi:

Let’s see. I think greatest moment for me was after a year of having no job after graduating and no money. Then, on my birthday I got a full time job, my first full time job ever. That was huge for me. Even though I ended up quitting the job and doing my own thing, I learned a lot of life lessons through the wait, and through being broke, and then through having what I thought I wanted. That was the defining thing for me. I definitely learned that sometimes what you think you want, what you envisioned isn’t for you.

Nic Abraham:

Mm-hmmm. How does it feel having thriving businesses, about to move to Korea and just really taking life by the horns and just living it. How does it feel?

Jacque Amadi:

It’s scary. It’s very scary when you’re kind of stepping into unknown territory. It’s also awesome. Even though I’m afraid of going by myself and things like that I’m also very, very excited for what God has in store for my future. Even though I don’t know what it is, I have a lot of faith that things are going to happen and things are going to pan out and turn out into something positive. Not just for me, but hopefully for other people as well.

Nic Abraham:

Awesome. Well Jacque, thank you so much for being with us today. Before we go, is there anything else that you’d like to share?

Jacque Amadi:

Well, if anyone’s listening who’s afraid of anything, I just want to tell you to punch fear in the face and do those things that scare you because fear is something that the devil puts in front of us to block us from our blessings. If you need help punching fear in the face, I will put on my boxing gloves and help out.

Nic Abraham:

Well, thank you so much Jacque. I definitely appreciate you jumping on a call before you head out to Korea and we wish you much success.

Jacque Amadi:

Thank you and I wish you success too.

Nic Abraham:

Thank you. This has been A Random’s Life Podcast Series. Thanks for listening and please tune in next time.